Posts Tagged ‘Gun Rights’

President Obama gave an address from the Oval Office on Sunday night in the wake of the San Bernardino terror attack. In the course of his speech, an address riddled with a wholly self-serving defense of his abysmal record on national security, and also during the media coverage thereafter, it became plain that neither the President nor the Washington beltway media “get it.” The American people aren’t cowering in fear of ISIS. They’re not lashing out in hatred of American Muslims. They’re not afraid of al-Qaeda, ISIS/ISIL, or any other terror group or “radicalized” elements living and operating in the United States. Instead, what the American people are is angry. The American people are enraged. They’re good and damned well pissed-off, and not just with the terrorists, but particularly with our political leadership and the DC beltway media. President Obama didn’t improve things for himself on Sunday evening, indeed one could argue he worsened things. The American people don’t trust the DC cartel to defend our nation, and it’s downright galling to average Americans.

Obama didn’t waste any time in listing a litany of actions he’s taken to fight terrorism. What he did not do was to acknowledge the failures of his administration. Instead, he started talking about new restrictions on gun ownership. A ban on purchasing firearms among those who are on the terror watch-list or no-fly list will not stop such things. The people who carried out the San Bernardino attack were not on the no-fly list. He went on to say we need to limit the sales of so-called “assault weapons.” The fact is that no ban on such weapons would be of any value. In France, such weapons are illegal. In California, the laws are more restrictive than anywhere in the US. Bans don’t stop criminal from getting guns. They merely stop innocents from self-defense.

In talking about the threat we’re facing, the President couldn’t manage to link clearly, and in the same sentence, the notion of radical, militant Islamic terrorism. He threw “radicalization” into one sentence, and “Islam” into another. Nobody takes this seriously. When the President can’t square-up to an enemy and name him without equivocation, there’s no way the American people will respect the President. His tiresome, tortured excuse-making for Islamists and apologetics for Islam are no longer tolerated by the American people.

In the coverage after the speech, Senator Rubio, a lagging candidate for the GOP nomination, talked about how Americans are afraid to travel, and afraid to fly. I’m sure there are a few hands-full of such people, but everybody I know is simply infuriated. They don’t believe the government, either party, or the media generally. Why should they? More, Rubio went on to insist that we needed to collect more data, but as Rand Paul pointed out, the French gather more information than the US ever has, but it did not stop the attacks in Paris.

The simple fact is that as I’ve recounted to you before, President Obama Is NOT incompetent. He’s malevolent. He isn’t interested in what’s good for the country or its people. In point of fact, he’s remained steadfastly committed to punishing the American people since his first inaugural. Obama can’t wait to tell us about how we should not push Muslims away with distrust and suspicion, but this is the same President who did everything in his power to alienate people who attended Tea Party rallies. In the instance of Tea Party folks, or conservatives generally, he couldn’t wait to alienate, and his friends in the media couldn’t wait to paint the the Colorado theater shooter as a Tea Party guy, which of course was debunked within an hour or so of the claim first being made in the media. No, this President has too many sympathies with the Jihadis, and more in common with them than with the bulk of his countrymen. Barack Obama is despicable, and this address simply confirms that view of him. Rather than supporting and defending the citizens of the United States, defending their liberties while simultaneously defending the country, Obama is more interested in protecting the feelings of Muslims while simultaneously preying upon the First and Second amendment liberties of citizens. He’s not interested in defeating ISIS or al-Qaeda, but in defeating conservatives by any means necessary.

In my area, I’ve been monitoring a case involving Army Master Sergeant Christopher “CJ” Grisham, who was unnecessarily assaulted, disarmed, and arrested by Temple policeman Steve Ermis while out on a hike with his son. The case went to trial this week, and at its end, there was a hung jury with five of six jurors finding Grisham “guilty” on the class B misdemeanor charge of “interfering with a police officer in the performance of his duties.” Prosecutors will indeed try the case again. Apart from the preposterous expense of re-trying the case, and ignoring the biased manner in which the court trial was carried out by visiting judge Neal Richardson, there remains the simple relevant fact that at least five of the jurors were able to discern: CJ committed no crime. He and his son were walking along a roadside in a rural part of Temple, the elder Grisham with an AR-15 slung from his neck, as well as his concealed handgun. There is no law against openly carrying a long-gun in Texas, and Grisham has a concealed handgun license, but as usual, there’s always somebody in a hurry to claim offense or that they had been in fear.

It was such a caller to Temple PD who initiated this case. I want to address this post particularly to such people, as perhaps best represented by a person who wrote a letter to the Temple Daily Telegram, or who otherwise claim some offense against their psychological state: Get over it. Your fears do not invalidate the rights of your fellow citizens.

Let us first stipulate that we have an obnoxiously large proportion of our society that no longer understands what constitutes a “right.” I place the blame for this at the feet of a failed education system and failed parenting, as well as an ever-growing statist regime. Examples of rights are things like free speech, free exercise of religion, freedom from wanton search and seizure, and freedom to self-defense and its implements(the right to keep and bear arms, for instance.) Things for which there can be no right would include “a right to food,” or “a right to health-care,” or a “right to education,” among many others. Added to these material things provided by others to which one can have no legitimate right, there are also intangible things to which one can have no right. For instance, our founding documents specify a “right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Neither does it demand simply “happiness,” nor does it suggest that such happiness as one may pursue ought to be provided by others. This is because it is preposterous to suggest that if you’re unhappy, somehow, somebody will compelled to make you happy. This is because your emotional or psychological state is entirely your affair. Knowing this, let us examine the preposterous, childlike, almost infantile claim of those who wish government to protect them from “fear.”

One of the letter-writers to the Temple Daily Telegram attempted to make this case: CJ Grisham may have a right to carry a gun, but in public spaces, her fear should trump this. Because the writer is afraid of guns, all who own guns must therefore yield the right to possess them. Consider the following from the Temple Daily Telegram, under the title My Rights vs. his:

“I would like to say “thank you” to Temple Council members for not allowing Sgt. Christopher J. Grisham to dictate how they address the issue of carrying guns wherever someone chooses. The Second Amendment gives him or anyone the right to “own” a gun, when legal. However, it does not give them the right to impose their rights on everyone else. His rights end when they infringe upon my right to feel safe and free of fear when I go outside of my home and see people carrying guns.”

“Impose?” This is the sort of inverted logic I expect from a third-grader. It evinces a complete misunderstanding of the entire concept of rights. If we are to subject the rights of citizens to the random, irrational and entirely variable fears of all other citizens, we must immediately embark upon a program to build a vast prison able to contain all seven billion humans, who once imprisoned must never be let out. I might claim, and it would be true, that I am afraid for my life due to idiotic letter-writers who demand the disarming of their fellow citizens. Let us now hold such letter-writers in prison, or at least prevent them from writing further correspondence lest I or others of a similar mindset be unnecessarily fearful. We can extend this putrid argument of the timid to virtually any and every issue. Once one has embarked down this path, there is no turning back. CJ Grisham did not impose anything on any person. He was minding his own business, on a hike with his son, when a police officer arrived to impose sanctions on him for the sake of some caller’s irrational fear, due to their ignorance of both the law and the concept of rights, or simply to malice. No, we must not permit such folly to determine when rights end, or there will be no rights of any sort: No cars, no trucks, no airplanes, and no houses. No people. Some one is fearful of virtually any thing, any one, or any action possible to imagine.

A sane adults’ emotional or psychological state is entirely under his or her control. I am not responsible for how you feel. CJ Grisham was not responsible for the dubious emotional state of the caller who observed him walking alongside a rural road armed with a rifle. I walk my property frequently with firearms in-hand. Thankfully, I live far enough outside city limits that most passersby seem to recognize nothing particularly threatening or untoward about an armed man in the country. Sadly, this is not always the case, and despite the fact that Grisham was breaking no laws, violating no rights, and frankly “imposing” nothing whatsoever on any other person, he was unnecessarily disarmed, assaulted, and arrested by a Temple police officer responding to that call. If you want to know how tyranny grows, it is due in large measure to the sort of numb-skulls who profess to be frightened of this or that. What they seek is a peace of mind absent any other humans, and far too many public officials are willing to seek power by claiming to serve that need. Only in death can any person rightly expect to obtain a “freedom from fear,” but ultimately, death, its threat, and its implements are the sole tools available to politicians who promise it.

Consider Franklin Roosevelt’s so-called “Second Bill of Rights,” a litany of things to be provided, including mental or emotional states. It would have been better to have termed it a “Bill of Violations of Rights,” would we have been honest. Obama-care is a response to the very same thing: Some people must have their rights to life, liberty, and property denied due to the wants, wishes, and fantasies of others. This practice of tyrants creating conflicts between the actual rights of some people and the wishes of some others is not new. What is new has been the rapid advance of this bankrupt theory into our American culture. Due to faulty education, negligent parenting, and a vast political engine based on exploiting human weakness, America has arrived at the point in history where it must now fail for the lack of individual rights and the courage that had maintained them. “Rights” as conceived by our founders are disappearing under the crush of timid, slothful, morally-confused people with the ethics and standards of our lowest common denominator. The hopeful aspect of Grisham’s mistrial is that one of the six jurors ultimately understood what had been at stake. When CJ Grisham is re-tried, I earnestly hope that more who have understood the concept of rights will be on his jury.

At least five more.

You may remember the viral video of the event:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8r4MK3R4PI]

Editor’s Note: The Temple Daily Telegram is a paid subscription site for much of its content. The letter posted is part of that content, and therefore not all of it is available without subscription. I wouldn’t recommend the Temple Daily Telegram to any person, even were its articles available at no cost. It is one of several regional newspapers of the local establishment, pandering primarily to cronies. While there are occasionally stories or columns that contradict the party line, it remains our local version of Pravda, of former Soviet Union character. Update: The juror verdict count was earlier reported as 5 not guilty, and 1 guilty. Subsequent information provided to this blog substantiates the notion that this was actually backwards.

In 2003, Ronnie Barrett of Barrett Rifle fame sent a notice to California saying that he would no longer sell guns to government agencies in that state because that state prohibited sales of his company’s rifles to ordinary citizens. Barrett has been an outspoken industry leader in the fight against gun control, and lately, his general tactic has been spreading through the industry, and this past week, he added the State of New York to the list of jurisdictions in which his company will no longer do business. More and more companies are deciding that as a moral concern, they can no longer do business with institutions of government that are attempting to limit the rights of law abiding citizens to keep and bear arms. This is a hopeful trend, but I’m afraid there’s more to this than a list of smaller companies making such pronouncements. Few of the big players have gotten aboard, and it’s time for you to know about them. Large firearms and ammunition manufacturers continue to rake in government dollars, many of them having large government contracts. It’s time for ordinary citizens who purchase firearms to begin applying pressure by way of their wallets.

It’s high time that the large firearms manufacturers begin to get the message. On that basis, it is my pledge (for what little it may be worth) that I will not do business with any company not appearing on the list of those interested in upholding the rights of ordinary citizens to keep and bear arms. My next firearm will certainly come from somebody on this list. It’s time we smarten up and realize that by feeding the beast, we’re making it stronger, and if large(r) firearms companies need to learn from whence their bread is buttered, so be it. They need to feel the crush of a people who have realized that to do business with them is to support their own oppressors. We who assert our Second Amendment guarantees of our natural right to keep and bear arms must begin to put our money where our mouths are on this issue, if we haven’t already.

On Saturday I refused to sell a AR-15 rifle to a police officer from California. He came into my shop and wanted to buy his duty gun in AZ because the same gun in his home state would cost him more. I told him that I would not sell him the gun even though he had his department letter saying he was able to buy it. I told him that if the gun was not legal for law abiding men and women in CA I would not sell it to him. After he told me that “civilians don’t need them type of guns,” I asked to leave my shop. He stomped out mad.

I have made a decision to not sell to any gun to police department that are not legal for civilians. We build custom AR-15 and have sold more then a few to cops in a few states. I am not sure how this will effect us but as we grow and our name gets out there more we will not change this policy.

You see, it is the small(er) companies that understand that it is the principle of the matter that underlies all of our freedoms. It is one thing to say that one supports the Second Amendment, but it is entirely another to demonstrate the measure of that commitment by virtue of actions. I am gratified to see larger or at least more prolific companies joining the list. LaRue Tactical, from right here in Central Texas, has been among the stalwarts, and I really appreciate their bumper stickers.

We as consumers and advocates of freedom have a choice, and it’s a critical one. We can simply buy from an unlimited list of manufacturers and sellers, or we can restrict our purchase decisions to the smaller list of companies that support our liberties. Placed in this context, it becomes clear that we have only one rational choice, and that we must at long last begin to discern among our options with a sharper focus. It’s also time to bring heat on those companies that are not committed to our liberties. If you’re in the market for a firearm or accessories, it’s high time to begin looking closely at those with whom you will do business. High quality firearms are available that will fulfill your needs while also supporting your moral position. Reward those who understand the Second Amendment and who realize that their future is tied to the liberties we enjoy.

I have warned veterans in previous posts about how they would be targeted, and it has been suspected by wary veterans for some time that the VA first approved claims for PTSD as the future means by which to strip rights from veterans, but few took notice. We already know that the Department of Homeland Security headed by Janet Napolitano considers veterans a threat, and viewed through the lens of leftist revolutionaries, it’s perfectly understandable. Veterans are a generally patriotic group who had sworn an oath to the US Constitution, so that their loyalties ought generally to be in favor of our republican form of government. They will be viewed necessarily as potential counter-revolutionaries if the left succeeds in pushing their “fundamental transformation” to its completion. Skilled in arms, and generally understanding at least rudimentary guerrilla tactics, US Military veterans comprise a significant potential danger to leftist designs.

In 2010, the Veterans Administration began approving claims for PTSD more easily than in previous years. This was not accidental. By making claims of PTSD easier, the VA created a new open door for borderline claims that enable more veterans to find an easier path to compensation. That is the enticement, and it worked because more veterans than ever have used the new rules to file such claims and derive compensation. The problem is that the PTSD classification carries with it the immediate potential of such judgments as are being made about veterans’ basic competence. On that basis, to consider a veteran incompetent to handle his or her own affairs, and thus strip them of the right to keep and bear arms is but a short step. As previously stated on this site, I would never discourage any veteran from seeking help actually needed, but I would caution all those who would consider making a claim for PTSD to think long and hard about what they may be giving up.

Consider the ease with which the VA will make this argument: Persons suffering with PTSD can be volatile and sometimes unstable or violent. Sometimes, they are suicidal. In any of these cases, one would not ordinarily entertain the notion of permitting such persons to own firearms, irrespective of their service records. Making the leap to declaring these persons “incompetent” on the basis of their inability to pursue the VA processes (to the extent they ask for help) is an easy method by which to get veterans classified in this way. A determination of incompetence is the death knell of one’s Second Amendment rights. Veterans pursuing claims of PTSD (or anything else) with the VA should think long and hard about the consequences because while we certainly do not want veterans to go without the assistance they need, it would be awful to awake and find that the VA is painting with an overly broad brush and subjecting most veterans to this kind of classification.

Consider the cases involving veterans with the PTSD classification who have committed acts of violence even after returning to civilian life. How difficult will it be to sell to the public that their veterans are dangerous time-bombs waiting to explode? Nobody in the Obama administration will think even twice about characterizing veterans in this way, which is why Napolitano did not issue an apology for classifying veterans as potential terrorists until after extended heavy criticism. Finding a way to control veterans’ right to keep and bear arms has long been an object of the radical left. As evidenced by the sort of letters now being received by numerous veterans, calling into question their competence to lead their own lives, including their right to possess firearms, it must be understood that the left wants to disarm as many veterans as possible.

More, initially, they will use test cases to see how far they can press the matter, and I expect that the first round of recipients of such letters represent the testing of this procedure. They will begin with veterans who have more obvious cases and who may be incompetent in some respect, with a few more questionable cases thrown in to test the limits. They will make the initial cases based on the public danger aspects, and once they succeed in making the procedure appear perfectly rational and sensible, they will begin processing wider and wider groups of veterans in the same manner. The first run through this procedure will be mostly actual cases of concern, because the early object of this will be to legitimize and normalize the process. Once it has become perfectly normal to strip a handful of veterans with real problems of their rights, the process will be widened to include more and more veterans, until a soldier who once stubbed his toe on a parade field will be subject to this classification.

To my brothers and sisters who have served, I urge caution. To those currently serving, I want you to beware of what seem to be easier paths to compensation. If you need help, get it. If you can live without it, avoid it. Know that contrary to what you have been told, the Veterans Administration is not necessarily your friend. As an arm of government, the administration of which is now dominated by leftists, the VA is an adjunct of their policy preferences, and those preferences include particularly the disarming of America, especially its veterans. There is no organization on Earth better positioned to accomplish that goal with less muss and fuss than the VA, and as is evidenced by the case brought before us by Jim Hoft and Michael Connelly, they intend to use it to maximum effect.

I have read the announcement made by Magpul Industries on February 15th via Facebook, and I wish to discuss it with you further. I realize that you do not wish to leave the state of Colorado, and that if the state enacts laws making your products illegal for purchase by customers in your state, as a matter of moral and philosophical consistency, your hand will have been forced, and that you will uproot your company and move it to another state more amenable to your enterprise. This is a commendable stance, and you are to be credited for taking it, as far too many people in business see only dollar signs but not the underlying principles that support their existence. I hope you are not forced to move Magpul, but if you find that you must, I’d like to offer you a new home where your company and its purpose are welcome.

Recently, my Governor went on a tour of California trying to drum up businesses to move to the Lone Star State, and while it seems he failed to find any takers, let me suggest to you that it is because he was looking in the wrong place. The problem with his approach was that he looked in a particular geographic location, but I think if Governor Perry had wanted more success, he would have looked to business owners who had arrived in a philosophical place, much like the one in which it seems you have arrived. Amoral and immoral lawmakers of the sort who would impose such legislation on the people of Colorado(or any state) help to create an environment in which men and women of good will are unable to continue in good conscience in their present circumstance. If such a condition arises anywhere, it constitutes the precise destination to which our Governor(or any Governor) should turn to look for businesses to bring to their states.

On that basis, let me make you an offer your conscience may find difficult to refuse. If the laws of Colorado are changed so as to make it unsuitable for Magpul Industries, I would very much like to see your company relocate to our state. More, I would suggest to you that within the vast expanses of Texas, there are particular places that would suit your company more than others, and that would offer the moral climate in which your operation would likely feel at home. Specifically, I would offer you Central Texas, and most specifically, Bell County. Bell County is home to Fort Hood, the U.S. Army post that is the home of III Corps, and it offers a variety of advantages to your operation should you be compelled to choose out of sad necessity to relocate your company.

Our largest two cities are Killeen and Temple, respectively, and our County seat is Belton. Temple and Belton are located directly on the I-35 corridor, while Killeen and Harker Heights, further west in the county, have access to I-35 via US-190, an improved four-lane, divided highway. Temple is home to a number of companies large and small, and it also feature Scott&White Hospital, as well as a Veterans’ Administration hospital both of which serve this region. Our climate is necessarily warm, but there are few work stoppages due to winter weather, and we are generally far enough inland from the coast that direct impact from hurricanes is minimized.

More importantly to your operation, we have many qualified prospective employees, many of them veterans skilled in the use of products you manufacture. Because we are home to Fort Hood, we have many veterans who decide to settle here(as I did more than two decades ago,) because Texas is a place of liberty and opportunity. More, Central Texas is a place that has a deep and abiding understanding of the moral purpose of self-defense, and its residents are quite aware of all the reasons your products are vitally important to a free people. So many of our residents having served in the Army, or having had loved ones who served, there is a reverence in our community for the Constitution, and for all it implies about limited government.

Taxation is relatively low here, and you would find a locale happy to embrace your business. Texas has fared better than many states under our current economic conditions, but as you are doubtless aware, no place has been entirely immune to the economic predations of big government except perhaps Washington DC. Due to this grim reality, there exists here no small number of potential employees who have skills of the sort for which you would be looking should relocation become necessary. We have shipping facilities and probably the sort of facilities you would need in order to set up operations here, and I offer you also this: Texas must be among the larger of your company’s customer states, so that a large share of the products you manufacture would actually be purchased and used by the people in whose state your company would then reside.

Having now shamelessly offered you my home state, and indeed my adopted home county as a new locale for your operations, let me explain to you that it is precisely because I am proud of our little slice of a big state that makes me certain about its inherent suitability to your enterprise. While you go about the business of giving your customers an “unfair advantage,” I would assert that Central Texas would provide your company a similar competitive advantage in a market segment full of innovators with whom you compete for business. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of location, but it is similarly difficult to overstate the importance of a welcoming community that will embrace a company’s philosophy and purpose. I realize that that such a decision would not be taken lightly, so please permit me also to state for the record that I understand a good deal about the torturous struggle you are enduring that would lead you to consider relocating your company.

I realize that you will have been beset by thousands or millions of such offers in the wake of your company’s announcement. I also realize that relocating is in fact the last thing on Earth you would choose, but for the circumstances that may arise now, well beyond your control. It is easy for those of us who would be the beneficiary of your prospective relocation to offer our respective areas, but I realize that it is much more a matter of heart-rending consideration for you, who must calculate the costs not only of moving a business entity, but of the dislocation and hardship that would attend those who work for you now, who might well not be able to relocate with you. I understand what it is to have one’s company undermined by stupid laws, and to have one’s dreams shattered by bureaucrats. I realize that much more is at stake here than simply picking up and moving a company. You would be moving the site of your great aspirations at the point of lawmakers’ pens.

The truth is that I hope sincerely that your fight in Colorado for rational law is victorious, and that you are able to overwhelm the proponents of bad law so that Colorado can remain the home of Magpul Industries. I also understand why you are making your stand, and why the demands of logical consistency will demand that you leave Colorado, should the legislature and Governor of your state act with such tempestuous reflexes against objects that are no more the source of violence than a pillow used to suffocate a sleeping victim. Objects don’t commit murder. Lawfully manufactured and distributed products do not commit murder. Only people commit crimes. Those politicians who use objects or products as surrogates for their alleged anger against criminals instead create a whole new class of victims, comprised of legally disarmed people who have not the ability to oppose in force the attackers who do not abide by the very laws that restrain their victims. I believe we should consider such politicians criminals by proxy.

I wish you well, both in your business, and in your life’s pursuits, and also to all of your employees who have with you provided so many Americans such excellent products. You should be proud of the company you have built, and all the things you have made that continue to revolutionize your market niche. I know that wherever you and your company land, you will continue to be leaders in innovation and reliability, and I want to thank you in advance for all you will yet do, not only for your customers, but on behalf of a people who understand the necessity of the right to keep and bear arms, and why taking a stand in favor of that right is essential not only to the future of your company, but indeed, the entire country.

One of the things I have grown to detest is the absolutely biased media coverage in the wake of tragic events such as the Sandy Hook shooting. The event was awful enough, but must news coverage also be biased with such regularity in favor of the leftists’ agenda? Naturally, the invariable answer is “yes,” and as we were treated to the sad testimony of parents who have just been through heart-rending disaster being exploited by politicians and media who are reliably intent on pushing their agenda, it is clear the media will never give coverage to the whole story. Here is Newtown Connecticut resident Bill Stevens giving testimony regarding the ongoing attack on the right to keep and bear arms in the wake of the tragedy at the school his own daughter attends, a clip I am fairly certain you did not and will not see on your evening news.

In Seattle, Police were conducting a buyback program in their attempt to “get guns off the streets.” Unfortunately, they didn’t plan on gun buyers showing up with signs and cash to offer in exchange for the guns. The police program exchanged gift cards worth $200 and $100, depending on the gun, but when gun buyers began paying in cash, many of the people there to sell their guns quickly shifted from the buyback line to wheeling and dealing with the cash buyers. According to the website DCXposed, the scene became like an impromptu gun show, particularly after police ran out of the gift cards, and began issuing IOUs. From the article:

John Diaz, Seattles Police Chief, wasn’t pleased with the turn of events stating “I’d prefer they wouldn’t sell them,” but admitted it’s perfectly legal for private individuals to buy and sell guns, FOR NOW. Mayor Mike McGinn said at a news conference the private transactions are a loophole that needs to be closed. “There’s no background checks, and some (guns) could be exchanged on the streets that shouldn’t be in circulation.”

But Schuyler Taylor, a previous gun retailer attending the event in hopes of buying weapons, asked “Why not offer them cash versus a gift card? I’m still taking the guns off the streets; they’re just going in my safe.”

It seems that this really rained on the parade of gun-grabbers, although they still managed to collect up a large number of guns. Still, the ingenuity of Americans and the entrepreneurial spirit are alive and well in Seattle.

If you’re still on the fence about gun control, or you know somebody who is, it may be time to acquaint yourselves with the recent experiences of the Australian people, who in 1996 enacted a ban on all semi-automatic and pump-action weapons in private possession. While the murder rate from guns has diminished in very small ways, their overall crime problem has since gone through the roof. It’s really no surprise that the results have been exactly opposite of what was promised, and contrary to all of the alleged “good intentions.” As Aussies have discovered, now that the gun ban has made things worse in the aggregate, reclaiming their gun rights will be nigh on impossible. Once liberties are taken away, they’re seldom returned, and if it’s your right to keep and bear arms you’ve surrendered, you won’t even be able to fight for them. The Australian experience should serve as a warning to every American.

Take a look at this video and acquaint yourself with what Obama and his ilk are really after:

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGaDAThOHhA]

Knowing that the overall crime statistics have worsened, you might be surprised to find that even the Chicago Tribune acknowledges that in Australia, since the ban, deaths by firearms haven’t diminished at a rate faster than they were already falling prior to the ban. As they suggest, while mass shootings have dropped to zero, this may owe more to random chance than to any effects of the gun ban. Considering the UK as another example, overall violent murders have increased despite the all-out ban on guns, and it shouldn’t be a surprise that once you remove the great equalizer, those who are the traditional targets of villainous scum would have a lesser chance of surviving an attack in a world in which they are legally disarmed, and by definition of their physical stature and condition, less able to defend against brutal attackers.

David Plouffe has been running his mouth, and he has stated that he thinks the President may have the votes in Congress for some sort of gun control action. If this is the case, it comes down to a bunch of sell-out Republican moderates in the House, never mind the Senate, where McConnell ought to be able to filibuster the thing to death provided Reid and the Democrats don’t employ the nuclear option. Once again, as the tide is shifting against the President and his leftist agenda, Republicans in Congress are contemplating surrender. If the Republicans go along with gun control, they will lose the House in the Senate and they will face a complete revolt by 2016.

I’d like to discuss this subject rationally with my readers, and that means we must dismiss emotion from the subject. The passions inflamed by discussions of gun bans, as well as the debate over their legitimacy and purpose are sure to take any debate to the brink, so rather than fill volumes with useless rhetoric, I’d like to cover a bit of ground most of the media, even conservative outlets, won’t touch with a ten-foot pole. People on the pro-Second Amendment side of this argument are quick to point out the very real statistics that demonstrate fewer people in the United States are murdered in a given year with all rifles, including the subset consisting of so-called assault weapons, than are killed in the city of Chicago with handguns in that same year. This statistic should be stunning to those who had swallowed the media hype about so-called “assault weapons,” but the simple fact of the matter is that such weapons account for a statistically insignificant number of murders in the US, according to the FBI’s own crime figures. Knowing this, it is reasonable to ask why it would be that the gun-grabbers would focus on this contrived class of weapons for their immediate gun-ban agenda. There are just a few reasons, and they’re all important to understanding their agenda, but one is absolutely critical.

The first thing to understand is that by simple appearance, and since cosmetics largely define the classification, so-called “assault weapons” look mean. Despite the fact that Grandpappy’s old-school Browning BAR in .30-06(7.62×63,) another semi-automatic rifle that is much more lethal, given the higher energy of its round versus an AR-15 in .223 or an AK-47 in 7.62×39, the Browning merely looks relatively innocuous compared to the menacing AR-15. The truth is that a single round from any of the three could be lethal, but if I had to bet on which would cause more damage, I would put my money on the .30-06. The .30-06 was the standard round the Army employed in its Springfield M1 Garand rifle, from the period covering the Second World War until its ultimate replacement with the M14 (.308) and the M16(the fully automatic cousin of the AR-15.) The projectile of a .30-06 is an awesome round, and as George S. Patton observed, the Garand rifle was at the time what he considered to be “the greatest battle implement ever devised.” Let us therefore conclude that there are indeed rifles with far more lethal capability that would not be considered “assault weapons” for the purposes of this ban. It is therefore an obvious conclusion that this classification of weapons, defined almost entirely by cosmetic characteristics, was created entirely because they look more threatening than Grandpappy’s BAR and therefore make for better propaganda.

This is the classification of weapons that constitutes the most rapid growth in gun ownership in the country, excepting one: Handguns. There are many more handguns in circulation than there are so-called “assault weapons,” meaning that as a purely political exercise, it will be easier to drum up some majority willing to ban “assault weapons.” This political calculation is why the focus is on so-called “assault weapons:” If the gun-grabbing camel is to get its nose under the tent-flap that is the Second Amendment, it must start with something that is owned by a relatively smaller albeit rapidly growing segment of the populace. If too many obtain weapons in this class, it will be more difficult to ban them, and so the gun-grabbers must act now to the extent they are able.

So-called “assault weapons” generally share another characteristic that gives them broad appeal both among civilian sportsmen and police or paramilitary organizations: Compared with many of the rifles that look more innocuous, they can be mastered and handled by a much larger segment of the population, because felt recoil is reduced to levels that do not jar one’s bones, and they are typically light enough that the do not cause extensive fatigue for the shooter. Because of their relatively simplified design, they are easily maintained by even an inexperienced novice. Most of them share various types of ammunition that are lightweight and inexpensive, giving them broad appeal. Since the expiration of the 1994 “Assault Weapons” ban in 2004, millions or even tens of millions of this type of firearm have been produced or imported into the United States, although most of the imports have been “sporterized” (removing many of the cosmetic features defining them as “assault weapons”) in order to comply with US Customs restrictions and regulations imposed by the BATFE. What this means to statist gun-grabbers is that so-called “assault weapons” are the most effective weapons with which to stave off any tyrannical moves by the government.

Their low recoil, easy portability, durability, weather and dirt resistance are all features common to their military cousins. The ease of maintenance, the high capacity magazines, and the relatively inexpensive ammunition mean that these weapons would be of indispensable use to those who comprise “the militia” as defined by our founders, who were not discussing and did not intend “The National Guard” by their description. The founders of our country and the framers of our constitution envisioned a militia made up of every able-bodied male, able to bear arms in defense not only of the country in time of invasion or insurrection, but in defense of liberty if the source of insurrection were to become the legalized sort characterizing every despotic form of government the world has ever known. Knowing this, it’s important to realize that so-called “assault weapons” are the focus of fear among the anointed who may have other plans for our republic. It is for this reason that they seek to ban them, because this is the sole weapon classification in broad distribution among the American people that makes a meaningful resistance to arbitrary governmental actions possible.

It is for this reason that the gun-grabbing left wishes to deprive you of so-called “assault weapons,” knowing that they resemble in many respects their military cousins, minus the ability to operate in fully-automatic mode. In truth, a well-skilled group of veterans, or average citizens could hold off a similarly sized military force for some time unless heavier weapons were brought to bear against them. From the moment the ATF carried out its botched raid on the Branch Davidians at Mt. Carmel, TX, it was clear to all who watched that a superior force of government agents could be held at bay indefinitely until there was an application of larger, military class weaponry. So-called “assault weapons” have no application in defense against tanks. It was in response to this raid that the assault weapons ban of 1994 was crafted. It’s also worth noting that as much as the broad-based backlash against Hillary-care, the AWB of 1994, passed by Congress in September, was instrumental in fueling the “Republican revolution” in November that year.

What the events in Waco made plain to the elites is that armed resistance is possible, and while it would be relatively easy to contain small enclaves of resisters in compounds simply by the application of superior firepower and military equipment, putting down a wider resistance might prove difficult. On a broader scale, with a resistance across the entire population, perhaps even on the offensive rather than hunkered in bunkers awaiting the end of the world, such a resistance might well overturn a runaway government despite its advantage in heavy weapons and military equipment. This was a shock to the powers-that-were, and it posed to them a new danger that spoke to a future moment when they might face justice for treason rather than a few dozens or hundreds of isolated radicals being dealt with in swift and severe fashion.

This may sound fantastic at first blush, but I beg you consider it if only to recognize the reasons why despite all of the illogical arguments made against “assault weapons,” the political class in our nation’s capital have a very strong reason to see the citizenry of the nation deprived of “assault weapons.” In their jaded but pragmatic view, citizens may use their shotguns, their handguns, and even Grandpappy’s old-style Browning rifle, to kill a deer, or even one another, but politicians are largely protected from these, and more importantly, they represent no meaningful offensive capacity in a theoretical war against the aggressions of government. Not since the advent of modern military weapons have the American people had at their disposal so effective a means by which to resist arbitrary government, and you had better believe that the government knows it. Whatever doubts they may have had evaporated during a morning raid in 1993 at the door of a religious enclave that had been obsessed with the end of the world. From that moment forward, it was realized and understood by the political ruling class that they must relieve the American people of that capacity. In 1994, they made the first attempt to do so.

In the eights years since the expiration of that law in 2004, many on the radical left have thought of little else but reinstating it, and you can bet that if they get it back in place, there will be no expiration this time, and no means save one by which to undo it. There’s a widespread understanding in Washington DC that on our current fiscal and monetary path, massive civil unrest is virtually inevitable, but if it should eventuate while the American people retain the capacity for mass armed resistance, the eventual clean-up may not look quite like the anointed class had hoped. It is for this reason that we must not permit them to ban our guns, and our “assault weapons” most of all, because the fact of their existence may constitute the only implement of detente in a cold war now waged by the forces of statism against the greater body of the American people.

Now you must understand why despite the illogical basis for the arguments, and in spite of crime statistics that demonstrate the irrational course of going after them, the statist gun-grabbers must act to deprive you first of so-called “assault weapons.” Once deprived of these, you will maintain no other for long. This concept was well understood by our founders, though in interceding generations, it has been neglected and white-washed by the statist intelligentsia. In that vein, I offer you a few pointed reminders you should take care never to forget:

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“I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people except for a few public officials. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.” – George Mason, during Virginia’s ratification convention, 1788.

“The power of the Sword, say the minority of Pennsylvania, is in the hands of Congress. My friends, and countrymen, it is not so for the powers of the sword are in the hands of the yeomanry of America from sixteen to sixty. The militia of these commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared with any possible army, must be tremendous and irresistible. Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom? Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American. The unlimited power of the sword, is not in the hands of either the federal or state government, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.” – Tench Coxe, Penn Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.

“…but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights…” – Alexander Hamilton speaking of standing armies in Federalist Papers 29

“There is something so far-fetched and so extravagant in the idea of danger to liberty from the militia that one is at a loss whether to treat it with gravity or with raillery; whether to consider it as a mere trial of skill, like the paradoxes of rhetoricians; as a disingenuous artifice to instill prejudices at any price; or as the serious offspring of political fanaticism. Where in the name of common sense are our fears to end if we may not trust our sons, our brothers, our neighbors, our fellow-citizens? What shadow of danger can there be from men who are daily mingling with the rest of their countrymen and who participate with them in the same feelings, sentiments, habits, and interests?” – Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Papers 29

“A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves…and include all men capable of bearing arms…To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them…” –
Richard Henry Lee, Initiator of the Declaration of Independence, and member of the first Senate, which passed the Bill of Rights. Additional Letters From the Federal Farmer 53, 1788.

“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any bands of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States.” – Noah Webster, An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution(1787)

“If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, …” – Alexander Hamilton Federalist Papers 28.

At present, the law rushed through the legislature in the State of New York does not exempt police officers from the prohibition on magazines with more than seven rounds. This isn’t surprising given the rushed legislation or the fervor of imbeciles in that state for stricter gun control. What’s astonishing is the confession of those, including their genius governor, who have said there will be an addition or amendment to the law before the ban goes into effect in March, exempting police officers. Given the facts ABC News has reported, these brilliant minds are even dumber than you and I might otherwise have suspected. How could I conclude this from their report? Let’s see if we can find the confession of failure in the article:

The Patrolman’s Benevolent Association President released a statement saying, “The PBA is actively working to enact changes to this law that will provide the appropriate exemptions from the law for active and retired law enforcement officers.”

State Senator Eric Adams, a former NYPD Captain, told us he’s going to push for an amendment next week to exempt police officers from the high-capacity magazine ban. In his words, “You can’t give more ammo to the criminals“

Well, apparently the genius State Senator is able to understand that criminals won’t necessarily abide by the restriction on magazine capacity, so much so that he’s worried that officers would face criminals with more loaded ammunition, but the esteemed legislator doesn’t realize that the same would apply to average citizens accosted by thugs? Cops are to be given the benefit of higher capacity mags, and as the PBA states, even retired law enforcement officers should be covered by an exemption, but you’re just out of luck!

To the residents of the State of New York, I bid you a fond farewell. I was born in that State, but I would not nowadays travel there for any reason I can imagine at present. In New York, while their State Senators apparently recognize the unnecessarily ludicrous level of danger these restrictions on magazine capacity impose on police officers, they don’t give a damn about ordinary citizens who may be confronted with thugs who may well wish to poach their lives too.

Do you suppose the bad guys will now say: “Hey, we’re going after a non-cop, so we don’t need our high-cap magazines?”

This entire line of reasoning is not merely logically broken, but morally bankrupt. It demands that while cops and criminals are free to parade around with whatever ammunition capacity they choose(since criminals don’t care about laws, and cops are exempted,) the people the government officials of that morally repugnant State don’t seem to give one damn about is you, the average citizen. Good luck! The State of New York now offers you a choice if you wish to give full vigor to the defense of your life, or the lives of your loved ones: Be a cop, a legislator, a retired officer, or a criminal. Law abiding citizens need not apply. Just stick to your seven rounds and get faster about your magazine changes. Before long, they’ll knock it down to three rounds. And then one. In the end, you can have the gun, but unless you’re a cop or a criminal, you’ll need to use it as a club.

It’s true that President Obama didn’t verbally admit defeat as he announced his new measures and legislative agenda on gun violence(a.k.a. Gun Control,) but that is the meaning of his seemingly tepid measures to combat “gun violence.” If the grotesque spectacle of the President of the United States reading letters allegedly from children isn’t enough, and delivering this while standing in front of children used entirely as a propaganda tool doesn’t go too far, then the idea that he would exploit the tragedies of Newtown, CT, or Aurora, CO as impetus for these actions should very nearly push you over the edge. Sadly, all that will be accomplished even if the entire slate of Obama’s proposals are adopted is to cause the number of children killed by mad-men to increase, ultimately leaving more law-abiding Americans less able to defend themselves and their families. Despite all of this, there is one hopeful sign in today’s actions, or the lack of more overt ones: The left knows they could not easily win this battle so they’ve chosen not to engage directly, at least for the moment. This is more back-door action, aimed at a future situation when they hope to be able to confiscate guns at will. This is the sole reason Obama did not press even more tyrannical measures through the use of executive orders. Today, Obama soundlessly admitted defeat, for now, but he’ll be back…with a vengeance.

I must also tell you that there are some very insidious provisions hidden in the plain language of his orders, and it’s time for you veterans to wake up and pay attention. We have long known that the left would like to go after veterans, because they see us as a potential force of resistance to the tyranny they desire. One of these executive orders requires information sharing among all departments of government, so I want you to know, those of you who are veterans, that if you permit yourself to be classified as having PTSD(Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,) there is a high probability that they will be coming after your guns, or at least your right to procure one, with this set of executive orders. I am not suggesting that those with real cases of PTSD shouldn’t seek help, but I am suggesting that those seeking help should go into it with their eyes open. At first glance, the slate of executive orders this President has issued doesn’t seem to be that obnoxious, but I’d ask you to reconsider. This president has decided that doctors must violate their confidentiality with patients or face potential sanctions or at the very least, civil liability. These measures really go too far, but since many Americans seem to be accepting that the President is screwing around with their health-care, they probably won’t mind if he gives orders to their doctors.

Despite all of the ginned-up polls suggesting Americans favor stronger gun control, what you will discover is that this issue doesn’t make the top five in importance. More, there is a great gender gap between men and women. A majority of men oppose the ban of semi-automatic weapons, while nearly two-thirds of women favor that measure. More important is the assessment of the root cause of guns violence. As the pie chart below from CNN demonstrates, the availability of guns is seen as the leading cause of gun violence by less than one-fourth of respondents. Fully three-fourths of respondents attributed gun violence to the influences of the popular culture or to the way parents raise their children. This is hardly a glowing endorsement of the proposal that limiting firearms, magazines, or bullets will reduce gun violence.

In typical Obama fashion, the White House Spokes-Puke Jay Carney responded to the NRA ad, accusing them of attacking the President’s children. Naturally, the Fox News Beltway Boys with Bret Baier but featuring Krauthammer and Williams concluded that the NRA was out of line with the ad, but the NRA didn’t attack the President’s children, nor did they suggest the President’s children should not have protection, but the dunderheads on Fox News seemed oblivious to that fact. Instead, each in turn cravenly conceded to the notion that the NRA’s ad had been ugly. Apparently, most of the people in the country are inclined to agree with the notion that everybody’s children should have protection at school, as that was the actual point the NRA video was intended to make, along with pointing out the hypocrisy of President Obama. Leave it to Beltway media folk to get this one wrong.

Perhaps the most telling portion of the CNN poll is the question of whether stricter gun control would reduce gun violence. Fully three in five Americans believe stricter gun laws will do nothing to reduce violence, while just thirty-nine percent believe the opposite. Here’s the chart from CNN:

Overall, and owing entirely to the gender gap described above, fifty-five percent of Americans currently favor stronger gun laws. This CNN chart tells the story, although they admit that this has fallen nearly eight percentage points since immediately after the Newtown shooting:

Many will offer that this poll owes to the ignorance of many people who don’t know a semi-automatic from an automatic rifle, and who do not grasp the obvious truth that bad people will do bad things irrespective of the particular weapons they ultimately choose. If guns aren’t available, they’ll find something else, like fertilizer, and build a bomb, or crash an airplane into a building. Most Americans remain sensible enough to realize that crazy and/or evil people will always do immense harm when they see an opportunity to do so.

For my part, I take some solace in the fact that Obama didn’t try to impose even more tyrannical things than those already represented by today’s twenty-three executive orders, and you should expect that he will pursue them if he sees a political opening to do so. Besides, with Boehner running the House, Obama may yet try an end-around and get some of the weak-kneed Republicans in that body to act in conjunction with Democrats, to re-impose a Federal Assault Weapons ban, or impose limits on magazine capacity, but the problem remains that once you get outside the liberal havens represented by the Northeast corridor, the popularity of such proposals drops dramatically, which is why Obama today encouraged people to put pressure on members of Congress outside those safely blue zones. In truth, the drive for gun control matches in character the national by-county mappings of Obama’s electoral victory, but in fact, it’s not even that strong since some counties that are blue on that map would inevitably express opposition to gun control.

As bad as this has been, and as ridiculous as Obama’s executive orders may be, I want you to understand that if he sees an opening, it will be far, far worse. It’s also important to remember that he’s going to be applying maximum pressure against even the more conservative members of the House to see what he can get shoved through, since the Senate will undoubtedly do his bidding. This President hasn’t given up on his desire to disarm Americans, but for the moment, he clearly doesn’t think the political will exists to ram the whole thing through. If he did, he would have done so, and the battle would look quite different tonight. What I would urge patriots to do is to avoid complacency, and to keep pressure on their members of the House, and on Republican leadership as well, to oppose more of this gun control agenda that a wide majority of Americans already recognize will have no impact on gun violence. We need also to get more people who are currently on the fence, or even opposed to consider our arguments. Maybe you have a few single women in your circle, some of whom buy into this gun-control nonsense. It’s time to get them to the range, empower them, show them how guns can provide them far more protection than some poor overworked cop who may be dispatched eventually when they call 9-1-1, but who will frequently arrive much too late.

The dirty secret they won’t tell you about is why they go after so-called “assault weapons” when the vast majority of all gun murders are committed with hand-guns is that over the last number of years, women have been arming-up in record numbers. That’s right, “Julia” is more likely to be packing heat. Showing more women that they have less to fear from guns than from lacking them in a moment of need should be a priority for all gun-owners. The more responsible citizens who have guns, train to use them, and are confident and capable in their own defense, the less relevant this nonsensical drive for gun control will become. There’s simply no better way for a woman to become the physical equal or superior of her attacker than through arms. There is no means available by which she can more forcefully defend her family than through the disciplined training and use of firearms should the situation call for it.

If you want to know why I believe Obama unintentionally signaled an at least temporary hold on his gun control agenda, it is because he is confronted with these facts. When CNN’s own polling makes the case so thinly, it’s a good deal worse for their side than their polls are likely to indicate. A five-point swing nullifies the gun-grabbers edge, and they know it. As more people lift the veil of ignorance and seek out facts about guns and gun violence, they’re apt to shift more rapidly in many quarters to favor the rational side of this argument. Part of being a citizen of this great country is making the effort to inform your fellow citizens about pressing facts they may not know. That must be the root of our continuing efforts to stave off future tyrannical actions. We still don’t know what the moderate Republicans in the House will do if cornered on such legislation, and with Boehner conducting negotiations, we mustn’t let our guard down. Despotism often takes root when citizens become complacent, and if today’s stage-show with Obama demonstrates anything, it is the fact that we must grow louder, stronger, and more numerous if we are to defend our remaining liberties, never mind take back those already lost. You can bet that during the immediate future, Obama and his cohorts will be pushing hard to make as much political hay of this latest horrific event as they are able. If there’s one line we must not let them cross, this is it, and while national sentiments may be their reason for a moment of pause, we must not take that for granted.

There’s not much one can add to the simplicity of this message. Barack Obama’s children go to school and enjoy the protection of armed guards. Why should your kids have any less? This video courtesy of the National Rifle Association’s NRA Stand and Fight website:

Once again, James O’Keefe and his Project Veritas were out there catching lefty hypocrisy on video. This time, they were demonstrating how the same people who can’t wait to publish the location of registered gun owners don’t like any attention coming to their own homes. Some of the people have armed guards outside to protect them given the recent backlash against the new organization, but naturally, none are willing to place a sign saying “Gun-Free” in their yards. Why not? I would think they’d invite the attention, but no, they’re liberals which means they’re free-riders who wish to have the status of their gun ownership in doubt. As you will remember, the Journal News and Star Ledger published pin-maps of registered gun-owners in their respective areas. Now, these same people don’t want their homes labeled as “gun free.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt1Zy_ASNyA#!]

Imagine that you’re a doctrinaire leftist who believes that people shouldn’t own guns, to the extent that you’re willing to publish a pin-map of all those who do, in order to bring pressure(and perhaps harm) to those gun-owners. To then be shocked and surprised when there is a public outcry over your publication is obnoxious. Now, confronted by O’Keefe’s group posing as anti-gun activists, you see their reactions. These are hypocrites. They don’t wish to advertise their own status as unarmed homes, but would instead like to leave the matter in doubt. Why?

Simply put, they benefit from all those who are armed, and they benefit from the doubt as to whether a given home might have become armed since their publication. They want the benefits of criminals believing they may be armed, but not the responsibilities of being armed. This is the height of hypocrisy. It also demonstrates the pure cowardice of the leftists in media. I would have a good deal more respect for their position if they’d accepted O’Keefe’s signs, proclaiming proudly that theirs are gun-free homes. At least that would be putting their money where their mouths are, but no such character was exhibited in this video. Mostly, at the homes of the Journal News and Star Ledger folk, O’Keefe’s band of spoofers were turned away.

Walmart has denied that it is changing its policy, even temporarily, on the re-stocking of ammunition. This is according to a WND report. From that article:

“That information is inaccurate,” said Ashley Hardie, a spokeswoman located at Walmart’s corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Ark.

WND then asked whether the retail chain is cutting back on orders of ammunition.

“No,” Hardie said. “We’re continuing to serve our customers as we have in the past.”

She said Walmart’s ammunition sales policy has not changed, even amid talk of gun-control legislation in Washington, D.C.

WND is also reporting that CNSNews, the source of yesterday’s viral story, has in fact pulled the article at this hour. On the other hand, as WND further reports, they had the following information from people not connected with the original story on which Monday’s CNSNews article had been based:

Meanwhile, WND reader Sam Singleton said his local Walmart in Myrtle Beach, S.C., has a very short supply of ammunition. According to Singleton, the store claimed it had received a letter from corporate headquarters on the issue.

“The clerk said they only had what was left on the shelf and that there was a ‘hard lock’ on the reorders. She said they hadn’t been getting any replenishment and that just today the store had received a letter from the corporate office stating that they would not be able to order any replenishment of ammunition, other than some for shotguns.

“She said they were not stocking anything that could be used in an ‘assault-type rifle.’ I said, ‘This is ammunition I use for practice,’ and she said they were just told there was a ‘hard lock’ on ammo sales.”

Another WND reader, Patrick Clemons, reported a similar experience today after he visited the Walmart in Folsom, Calif.

This is all very curious. If we are to believe Walmart’s denials, then it’s hard to square with the reports from various people independently reporting very similar things. Either there is a massive conspiracy to “get Walmart” or there’s a cover-up under way. At any rate, as of this update, Walmart says it’s not true.

If you ever wanted to know how thoroughly bankrupt the arguments of the gun-grabbers are, all you need to do is watch this video. Watch the liberal host, Bray Cary, get sucker-punched repeatedly by WVCDL President, Keith Morgan on the State Journal’s Decision Makers. The WVCDL is the West Virginia Citizens’ Defense League. If Alex Jones had been the model for how not to win an argument, then Morgan’s calm and collected demeanor is an excellent example of how to corner the left with their own nonsense, rather than coming off like an unhinged lunatic. What this video reveals is the fear-driven mindset of liberals in media who want to get rid of guns. Cary doesn’t really want to have a rational discussion, for all his posturing to that effect. Listen carefully as a plainly rational man de-fangs this leftist vampire who eventually looks as though Morgan had been wielding holy water, a stake and mallet:

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECxDvwObwZk]

Here is a perfectly reasonable man attempting to have a logical conversation with a leftist who turns out to be simply another ignorant talking head. As the host ultimately admits, he simply doesn’t think private citizens should be armed. More, the moment Mr. Morgan corners him, he becomes almost desperate to go to break and end the segment, particularly once Morgan begins to describe the lie that is the claim that so-called “assault weapons” have never been used in defense against criminals. This is a blatant lie, and it been debunked so frequently that it’s astonishing it keeps being re-told.

So much for the faulty assertion that none have ever defended their homes with an AR-15. The truth is that most instances of defense never involve the discharge of a weapon, but merely the display of one. There is no statistic on how many times guns were brandished or displayed causing would

Barack Obama and the forces of the left want to deprive me of my rights. Naturally, they want to strip you of your as well. In that sense, let us admit that they are equal opportunity despots. There’s a problem, however, and it’s simply this: I have committed no crime and no tort, and I have harmed no other living person, and after nearly half a century on the planet, and with nearly thirty years bearing arms, both privately and on behalf of my country, there are no innocent victims littering a bloody trail behind me. Obama and his minions would have you believe that their intention is to reduce gun violence, but that’s simply not true. The real intention is to punish the innocent, and to reward the guilty, but decent Americans who abide the law should have the clarity of conscience to reject the charge and to demand that the Obama administration prove our guilt before depriving us of our liberties. You see, that’s how it is supposed to work: The Constitution accords us each due process of law before our rights may be suspended, violated or infringed. Rather than confront the real problem, the gun-grabbers are building sentiment for punishing the innocent in lieu of the guilty.

There is no such notion in American law as a collectivized guilt to be shared between the innocent as well as the guilty. Both our civil and criminal legal systems are based in individualized concepts of justice. The Fifth Amendment as well as the Second guarantee that neither Obama nor Congress can take our guns simply because they concoct a figment of law in order to compel you. The Fifth Amendment’s text explains the context in which your rights may be suspended or violated:

“No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.“(Emphasis added)

The relevant portions of this amendment make it plain that I am entitled to due process of law, and that due process is every bit as much an individual right as any other guaranteed by the constitution, although the government has gotten in the habit of pretending otherwise. I have a right to my arms, to bear them, and to maintain them in perpetuity without governmental interference, as guaranteed by the Second Amendment. So long as that Amendment remains in force, in order to strip me of that right, the government must first accuse me of a crime, convince a jury of my guilt, and sentence me accordingly. I have the right to have my day in court, present a defense, and provide exculpatory evidence on my behalf. Leftists like to pretend that when Congress passes a law and the President signs it, or he enacts new regulations or dicta, this is all the due process to which individuals are entitled, but this is not the case particularly when we are talking about rights explicitly enumerated in the Constitution. The due process clause clearly applies to individuals. The text makes that fact plain, since it is written with a singular pronoun: In describing the “person” who shall have due process of law, it says: “himself.” One needn’t be a constitutional attorney or a Supreme Court justice to recognize the plain language of the constitution and to understand its meaning.

On this basis, I wish then to know when each of us will be charged in some manner, according to some law, on the basis of which Barack Obama, Eric Holder, and their host of Marxist brethren will present indictments against each of us. I want to know the charges against me. I want to know what is my alleged guilt so that I may be deprived of my explicit liberties guaranteed by the US Constitution. Passing a law to outlaw this gun or that magazine, subsequently accusing me of violating it, does not pass the constitutional stricture against post facto law, in the first instance, nor is such a law an individualized process. It is instead mass punishment. Mass punishment of any sort violates all the principles of the constitution, and yet what Obama and his goons would have you believe is that we must be deprived of so-called “Assault Weapons” on the basis of a collective guilt for the actions of a few criminals who have committed horrendous acts, to which we have no relationship.

Still others like Governor Cuomo pretend that the number of rounds we can have ought to be limited, but as one combat veteran explained to me when I was a young private in the Army, “You won’t know how much ammunition you’ll need until the firefight is over.” This is undeniably true, and I was reminded of it when a caller to Mark Levin’s show made much the same point. You don’t know how many bad guys you’ll face, or how they will be armed. Andrew Cuomo screaming at the top of his lungs about whether hunters have a legitimate need for magazines that hold more than ten rounds is a farce, because the Second amendment has absolutely nothing to do with hunting. Do hunters enjoy the protections of the Second Amendment? Certainly, but they are not the object of the Second Amendment, otherwise we would see an amendment elsewhere defining a “right to hunt.” This illusion the gun-grabbers want you to stumble over is a nonsensical argument because the founders did not enshrine the right to keep and bear arms in the US Constitution so their heirs could shoot deer, or wild turkeys, or ducks. They ratified it as a protection against governmental tyranny.

Now we are confronted with a President who wishes to deprive us of our right to keep and bear arms. He presents no charges against any of us, and he offers no evidence in substantiation of the non-existent charges. Instead, he plans to act with despotic discretion in the matter. I have been charged with no crime, and knowing the character of my average reader, they haven’t been charged with a crime, yet this President intends to punish us just as surely as any convicted felon in acting to deprive us of our rights. This is the sort of thing one sees in any growing tyranny, where laws and dicta are written to prevent crimes that may well never be committed by people who may well never have conceived of committing them. Vice President Biden offered that if so few as one life is saved by the actions they will take, it will have been worth it. If that is now to be the argument in favor of banning guns, let us apply it equally to every issue. How many lives will be needlessly ended under Obamacare? How many children are aborted each day? How many doctors make errors each day? How many people are killed in motor vehicle accidents, or are trampled by cattle, or are struck by lightning? Using such a fraudulent rationale, one must construct an endless list of things to be banned.

We must ban knives because if only one life is saved, it is worth it. We must ban doctors, because if even one life is saved, we have done something heroic. We must ban cars altogether, because if even one life is saved… We can go on ad nauseum, but ultimately, what the left will reveal if they don’t know you’re paying attention is that if it were up to them, they would ban people. The left now enacts laws, and too often, the so-called moderate Republicans go along, and the object of these laws is inevitably to punish you for being alive. If you use gasoline, you must be punished. If you use paper, you must be punished. If you use water, air, or anything at all, you must be punished. Only when you are reduced to the level of a slave does the punishment diminish in its frequency and severity.

The entire argument being advanced by leftists is that all we who own weapons are guilty each and every time some lunatic commits a heinous act of violence against his fellow men. It’s largely based on a fear-mongering argument contrived to make people believe that there is something inherently evil about the instrument, and therefore necessarily evil about all those who would possess them. This is roughly as sensible an argument as the idea that because some people drive drunk, we should therefore do away with the motor vehicle, or because some Islamic supremacist nuts flew four airplanes into buildings and a fourth into the ground, jetliners should now be banned in the name of the public safety. By this sort of disconnected anti-reasoning, we should blame Wilbur and Orville Wright for 9/11.

I reject such reasoning, as I reject the authority of all those who would advance it. Law-abiding Americans are not even distantly responsible for the actions of the shooters who perpetrate these crimes, any more than they are responsible for the hundreds of murders on the streets of Chicago. Taking away my guns or the guns of other law-abiding Americans will do nothing to reduce the actions of murderous predators, but more than that, nobody has made a valid charge against them. What is being done in this instance is a travesty, with leftist activists making sure the crisis presented by the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut doesn’t “go to waste.” Americans should incensed at the notion that the actions of a handful of monsters somehow conveys guilt upon the rest of us, yet that is the basis of the emotionalized appeal being pushed by the anti-Second Amendment crowd.

The left pretends to adore the first Amendment, particularly those parts pertaining to freedom of speech, yet they would insist, one mustn’t permit people to yell “fire” in a crowded theater, and to that extent we are able to agree. For reasons entirely their own, they are unable to see that in order to prevent the yelling of “fire” in a crowded theater, we do not gag people before they enter. We do not place this prior restraint upon speech because there is a presumption of innocence, and yet this is precisely the thing they refuse to presume on the part of law-abiding citizens who own guns. Just as with the First Amendment, we do not punish or impede people in advance, but instead seek justice when they commit such a crime, so should it be for every other right of free people that might be abused. I will not accept a guilt I had not earned, and neither should any other American.

It is for these reasons that I have resolved that neither Barack Obama nor future politicians shall be permitted to have my guns. If they insist, I will resist them, and they will be compelled to choose whether to murder me, or to relent in their outrageous punishment levied against a man who is peaceful, and who had committed no crime, or otherwise harmed another soul. Benjamin Franklin had wanted the Great Seal of the United States to include the motto: “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.” If we are to be confronted with tyrants, may we be faithfully obedient to Franklin’s proposition.

In the aftermath of the horrifying school shooting in Newtown, it was inevitable that leftists would use the opportunity to agitate for further limitations on the right to keep and bear arms. Before the day was over, the Marxist-in-Chief appeared to make a statement to the press, a man who is himself perpetually surrounded by a legion of armed guards, and his basic premise was laid out: This has to stop and he’s going after guns to do it. This is the typical reaction to these sorts of events, just as the last “Assault Weapons Ban” was passed in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing, in which exactly zero assault weapons were used by the bombers. This is a fraudulent approach to a problem, because it has nothing in fact to do with the issue at hand. Timothy McVeigh didn’t need assault weapons to murder Americans en masse, because the real problem is with individuals, but not with the implements. Knowing this, I have a serious question or two for politicians before they decide to infringe upon our rights. I want them to know what’s at stake, because taking such steps could do mortal damage to the country.

I’d like politicians to place themselves in law-abiding gun-owners’ shoes. Many are like me. I’m an Army veteran, and since returning to civilian life, I have never raised any of the weapons I own in the direction of another living soul. I maintain a number of firearms for defense of my home, my family, and my farm, against both human and non-human predators. Some of these would undoubtedly be classified “assault weapons” given the bizarre criteria of the last iteration of the legislation, but that hardly matters. I’m a law-abiding citizen, and I cannot imagine a scenario in which I would employ my guns for reckless, wanton purposes. That notion is with respect to the laws as currently written, however, new laws would leave us with a new problem should the politicians in Washington DC decide they must enact a ban on any of the weapons we already lawfully own, because if they believe that Americans are going to hand them over, they’re in for a bit of a disappointment. Why do politicians believe that law-abiding citizens should be punished for crimes they have not committed, and would never commit?

Many Americans will not yield their weapons. Will not. Got that? So, here’s the trouble: If by enacting a new law, people are made criminal by possession of weapons that had been perfectly legal, folks in Washington DC will be making a grave error in judgment. You see, I am a big believer in what I like to call “Mark’s nothing-left-to-lose” theory, which states that if you make a criminal of a person by legislative or regulatory fiat, a person who has really committed no crime and no tort, that person really has no further reason to obey any laws. Not gun laws. Not traffic laws. Not tax laws. Not drug laws. Not any law. I think there’s something tragic about the sort of thinking driving this gun-grabbing mentality in Washington DC, but I also believe it is intended to garner the worst possible result, and there are those who will cheer at the carnage that will be wrought. You see, they will claim the political shield of their alleged “good intentions,” but the truth is that they have none. They intend to wreck this Republic, and if we yield so much as an inch on this, they will have made another step in that direction.

I am certain there are those advocating such legislation who believe they’ll simply send out federal agents to collect all the guns and thereby enforce the laws, and if they have a few shoot-outs with those who may be unwilling to surrender their arms, so much the better to strengthen the propaganda case. After all, it won’t be the necks of the politicians that are on the lines, but federal agents who have been directed to enforce an immoral and reckless law. I pity them, because I know some number of them will doubtless be injured or worse, but also because I know some of them will disagree vehemently with this law, and away from work, they’ll be forced to live under it just like every other American. The rational thinkers among them might well refuse to carry such a law into execution, but sadly, the soft coercion of a paycheck is a mighty motivator.

There is also the social pressure, and it comes in the form of celebrities, media personalities and politicians making ridiculous comments about America and “its gun laws.” Take Piers Morgan, who has “threatened” self-deportation if America doesn’t change its gun laws. Apart from leftist dolts, I cannot imagine the mindset of anybody who thinks this is an effective tactic. Will anybody miss Piers Morgan? To me, this looks like an inducement to repeal some of the archaic restrictions on firearms ownership already on the books. Note to Mr. Morgan: If you’re going to “threaten” us, be sure the threatened action is something that we’d like to avoid. As it is, and as his ratings demonstrate, I think Mr. Morgan had better start packing his bags now.

I think the politicians aren’t quite seeing the whole picture in such a short-sighted view of how things under a ban-and-seizure procedure might go. It’s their operating assumption that the one-hundred million Americans who legally and safely own firearms will either hand in their guns at the appointed place and time, or if they resist, simply hunker down to await the aforementioned federal agents to show up for the obligatory stand-off and eventual surrender or massacre. The problem with this view is that I don’t think the bulk of that one-hundred million Americans who own guns are nearly so stupid or short-sighted as politicians seem to believe. The real question is whether politicians are so universally craven, and if they’re willing to convert millions of law-abiding Americans into criminals by post facto writ of law. Do they understand that for some number of Americans, this will truly amount to an act of war? Do they believe all armed citizens will simply go along quietly?

I doubt that all one-hundred million Americans are likely to be so docile, or so flat-footed. I suspect that if politicians enact such laws, or actually attempt to confiscate guns from Americans, there could be a rather different reaction based upon “Mark’s nothing-left-to-lose” hypothesis. You see, I could well imagine any number of gun owners who would look at their guns, the impending seizures, their shrinking liberties, and simply conclude that “today is the day for the second bloody revolution.” I suspect they would not be so slothful as to wait, huddling in their homes for hordes of better-armed and vastly more numerous federal agents to appear at their door. No, I believe that if such a thing were to be enacted, the bright line between liberty and tyranny will have been crossed, and at such a point, it may well become an open season, not on poor federal agents who are being directed to such idiocy, but on politicians, media, and other public persons who support such nonsense, breaching the peace with legislation, prompting American gun-owners to oppose such tyrannical actions, and to show up at their doors with notions other than peaceful discourse in mind.

Naturally, there are those leftists who actually hope such a scenario would arise, because it would permit their shill to declare martial law, and so on, but the problem comes in for all those supporters of such policies who do not have and will not have a legion of armed guards to protect them on the day Americans finally become pissed-off, or otherwise decide they have nothing left to lose. There exists a substantial number of Americans who simply will not yield to such a law. This is not Australia, and contrary to the thinking of those who may have been led to believe the same sort of approach could work in the US, whereby the government would ban guns and conducted a mass confiscation through a buyback program, most going along quietly, there are still far too many Americans who realize the simple truth that a government that would seize the weapons of law-abiding citizens is a tyrannical master, and no longer an obedient servant.

One imbecile suggesting total confiscation is the governor of New York, whose only actual claim to fame is that his father had been governor of that state, that Bill Clinton hired him for a cabinet post as a favor to his father, and he used his father’s name and connections to elevate him into high office. Andrew Cuomo called for confiscation, and here, Sean Hannity and Michelle Malkin discuss the matter on FoxNews:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZcUoKaN_PM]

This is a dangerous time in which we live, made all the more dangerous by the imbecilic sloganeering of politicians bent upon an agenda of destruction. Guns really aren’t the problem, and they have never been the cause or source of violence. Instead, this is a problem of mostly insane individuals who do evil deeds. It’s a problem of people who are only loosely tied to reality or morality getting their hands on guns, or bombs, or airplanes. There isn’t enough banning and seizing to be done to combat all the evil actors on the planet, which is the reason that we must retain our rights to keep and bear arms. Some of those evil actors rise to power in governments, and occasionally, they too must be confronted with arms. It would be an awful lesson to repeat, if politicians foolishly insist on replaying it here, now, in the country that had been the world’s most free and prosperous. Taking away the right to keep and bear arms in any fashion isn’t an acceptable answer for a free people, and I pray a majority of our politicians know it. It’s not a lesson a free people should be compelled to re-teach.

Our founders had the wisdom to recognize that rights are a fact of man’s nature. They held that rights come from a Divine Creator, and that these rights cannot be nullified by governments. They fought a bloody revolution to sustain their noble argument, but they also assumed there would be those who would claim to know the mind of Divine authority, and inasmuch as they knew this, they sought even to place rights outside the realm of religion, lest another would-be king decide he spoke with Divine endorsement, or some ruler might arise who held no respect for the Divine. Knowing this, the founders laid the basis for our constitutional, representative republic on the foundation of an underlying philosophy that had no need of a claim to the Divine, though they claimed it nonetheless.

Consider the full meaning our founders authored, and together through the able pen of Thomas Jefferson declared:

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”-Declaration of Independence

These opening line in the Declaration of Independence set the stage for all that is to follow. Here, the founders introduced many to the formalized concept of Natural Law. Here, they laid the basis of our rights, and they pointed to the “…Laws of Nature, and of Nature’s God…” as the source. Think about what they directly implied with this choice of terminology. Whether or not you accept the existence of a Creator, the Laws of Nature dictate that mankind has rights that are a precondition of his existence. They endorsed God as the author of Nature, but irrespective of whether you share that view, they were laying down a clear marker: These rights exist, as a fact of Nature.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” -Declaration of Independence

They held these truths to be “self-evident” because every person is able to clearly discern the great natural law of cause and effect, action and reaction, and because every person can plainly see the necessary logic of the matter.

“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” -Declaration of Independence

Notice what government’s proper role is to be: “To secure these right…” There is no rationalization for the basis of government to create these rights, or even to endorse these rights, but merely to secure them. This is because the government cannot create what pre-exists government, and whether its agents endorse these rights, they must nevertheless secure them. This was intended to show not only the failures of the King against whom their revolt had been levied, but also against tyrants who might rise in some remote future.

They made plain that if a government becomes destructive of these liberties, it is the “right of the people to alter or abolish it,” and this is the statement of their motive and cause in having declared their independence. For those who will refute statists of the left by saying that rights are a gift from God, they find that they are immediately subject to the retort: “God? What God?” This has been the left’s basic approach to this argument for generations, and over time, it explains their desire to secularize our culture. After all, if some larger portion of the people come to believe there is no God, so much easier will it be to disclaim the entire matter of rights. Our founders were brilliant men, and they were ready for this argument, so the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence were designed to clarify the matter for all times.

Who can dispute that the laws of nature exist, and that they are immutable? We have no capacity to amend the Laws of Nature, and if Nature is the source of our rights as people, then no man can abolish them. They affirmed and endorsed in full the belief that a Divine Creator was the author of Nature, and therefore its law, but their construction was intended to make the argument over the existence of God irrelevant to the matter of the existence of rights. These were brilliant men, so they understood fully what sort of monstrous concepts would be used to attack their declaration, and all to which it would give rise. They were also offering an invitation of sorts: You needn’t have accepted their particular belief in God to be the beneficiary of these rights. The Laws of Nature are universal irrespective of one’s religious beliefs.

Consider that a right of the people to alter or abolish a government means that such a right pre-exists governments. Naturally, and in all logic, this is the self-evident truth, since individual men form a government, they can alter or abolish it at will, or even decide never to form it at all. If this is the right of individual people, banded together in common cause, needing only their mutual consent to do so, there must be some means by which to carry out such a necessity. If such a necessity were to arise that the people would decide to abolish a government, it would only be so because they could not simply alter it. After all, when your car becomes inoperative, you do not take it immediately to the wrecking yard. You will naturally try first to repair(alter) it, and even if it is operable, you might find it no longer complies with your needs. You might try to alter it so that it better-suited your purposes. Our founders and the framers of our Constitution recognized this inasmuch as they built in the means by which to amend(alter) our law or to scrap it altogether and start over(constitutional convention.)

They also recognized that a time might arise when a government might become so large and powerful as to prohibit the peaceful measures to alter or abolish it, and in such cases, they would ultimately write down yet another measure that would become our second amendment, providing a protection for the natural right of man to defend his life, liberty and property. This is the right we find under assault even now, as in the wake of the fiendish shooting in Aurora Colorado, no shortage of would-be tyrants have risen to decry the right to keep and bear arms.

We must never, under any circumstance, and by any diversion or claim of exigency yield any more ground on these rights. We have already given far too much ground, always in the name of a civil society, and yet with each step in the limitation of gun rights, our culture becomes more stricken with violence, and less safe for every person. Our founders understood that just as every government is made up of men, and as every man possesses a vast capacity for evil, every other person must maintain the ability, both in fact and in law, to defend against any device or practice of man, be they individuals, hordes, or governments.

They viewed this through the lens of Natural Law, in the same way they viewed all other laws given rise through the clear example of nature. You might make a law that prohibits in words the act of a lion to defend itself. Your law might demand in reckless disregard of the facts that a lion ought to lie down and surrender upon the approach of any man, and were he to resist the man, to restrain himself from making use of his fangs,claws, and superior dexterity. Assuming there could be a lion who could understand such a dictum, what would any suppose might be the reaction of the lion to such a farcical notion? Who suspects a lion would comply?

None would make such a fanciful law, because no lion would understand it, but more, none could be expected to comply in any way with it. That is the nature of a lion, and this self-evident truth is all one needs to understand the basic premise underlying the entire construct of natural law, upon which our founders relied in the formulation of our Declaration of Independence, but also in their laying down of our guaranteed liberties in the Bill of Rights.

Some will believe that such laws are not made merely because the lion cannot understand them, and therefore could not be expected to comply. The simpler truth is that a lion must not be expected to act contrary to his own nature. What John Locke explained, being perhaps the greatest enlightened political philosopher upon whom our founders had relied, is that no law ought to be erected that supposes man can be compelled to live contrary to his nature as man.

“Thus the ‘Law of Nature’ stands as an eternal rule to all men, legislators as well as others. The rules that they make for other men’s actions, must, as well as their own and other men’s actions, be conformable to the ‘Law of Nature’, i.e. to the will of God, of which that is a declaration, and the fundamental law of nature being the preservation of mankind, no human sanction can be good, or valid against it.” – John Locke, “Second Treatise in Civil Government”, Chapter-11, Section 134

Here is the evidence of Locke’s influence on the founders, and it is once again exhibited within this statement, that while Locke believed firmly in a Divine Creator, he nevertheless points out that God is the source of the Law of Nature. Were you to reject even the belief in God, you may not pretend that nature has no laws. You can credit the Law of Nature to anything you like, but what Locke made plain is that the Laws of Nature are not to be ignored or suspended, and that in fact, no law erected against the Laws of Nature can stand as valid.

Man’s greatest natural gift is not a claw or a fang, or the dexterity to employ them, but an agile mind, able to remember, and to correlate, and to associate cause with effect; to understand the relationship between action and reaction. Man furthers his life not through violent assault, even if such may on occasion be necessary, but by utilizing the best fruits of his mind. Just as one must not expect a lion to suspend the use of his claws or his gaping, fanged jaw, it is ridiculous on its face to expect man to suspend the use of his mind.

If it is foolishness to expect a man to suspend the use of his mind, it is equal foolishness to expect that he would abstain from the use of its products. A gun is an instrument, but like any other, it is incapable of thought, and incapable of self-determined action. It is a tool, and as such, having being created and reproduced by the minds of men, to expect men to abstain from using such a simple instrument is in every way as fundamentally bankrupt a notion as demanding a lion forgo the use of his claws. Just as a lion has every natural right to fight for the defense of his existence by all the means with which he is equipped, so too is man entitled by nature to fight for his own defense to the same degree of effort.

When a governmental lunatic, or mindless politician approaches you to demand that you lay down the means of your own defense, though you had wronged nobody, and threatened no one, you are right to look at that person as quizzically as the lion would look at the author of a claw-control law. What you are faced with is a person who has suspended reality to the degree that he no longer sees a toothed lion or an armed freeman before him, but instead a potential slave, and one who will subserviently yield the means of his own defense despite the warnings screaming in his brain that no good can come of yielding one’s rights.

Like the founders, conservatives respect the Laws of Nature, in part because most hold due reverence for their Author, but more fundamentally because they respect the self-evident truth the universe makes plain all about them. The right to self-defense is plainly a fundamental right that government may not abolish or suspend without consent of all those it governs. Were I the last individual person on the Earth to retain arms, even would the whole of humanity demand I relinquish them, I would maintain my right to them, and I would sustain that right by the ferocity of my defense of it, even if it were to be my last, and I would abolish so much of the attacking throngs as I might be able before I would be overwhelmed.

My right to keep and bear arms is non-negotiable, and my right to self-defense is identically sacred. So too is yours. Any person who would yield it is either a fool or a knave, and I say this with all due respect to all the brilliant masterminds who believe otherwise, which is little, or none. We who understand the implications of the founders must endeavor to see the full wisdom of their declaration, for it is our declaration too. They have gifted to us this legacy of superior reasoning, and we must guard not only the document, but the meaning of the words upon it. When dim-witted politicians descend upon every available microphone, and fill the frames of every available camera, all in a display of posturing for the sake of their fraudulent agenda the object of which is to protect themselves while enslaving you. What other reason can there be for their delusion? In what other purpose could their actions be intended? They wish only to urge the lions to de-fang and de-claw themselves.

This terrible tragedy must not be permitted to become the next excuse in pursuit of that end. For once, let us see the wisdom of our founders and let the lions defend themselves from the rabid dogs. The fools and knaves who mouth their slogans are accessories to such tragedies before-the-fact, having prohibited honest men and women from their own defense. Our founders knew with the certitude provided by their combined experiences and lifetimes spent in study by candlelight and lantern that man is the possessor of unalienable rights, that are the product of the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God,” and that none can make a rightful claim to nullify them among the innocent. We, who were born to the electric light-bulb, now banned, and who read by the light even of the devices on which the text is itself imaged should think long and hard before we too easily yield these rights. No other men before them had conceived of a country in which people might be guaranteed the full complement of their natural liberties, and if we let their light be extinguished, we may never see its kind again, instead condemned to languish in perpetual darkness.

Unarmed residents of North Carolina should be livid. On the other hand, criminals operating in North Carolina must be ecstatic because CBS affiliate WRAL(in Raleigh) has posted a complete searchable database on its website through which you can look up people by name and address to see if they have concealed-carry permits. Some are understandably afraid that concealed-carry permit-holders may be singled out by criminals, but in fact, what I expect is that criminals will search to see if their intended targets are gun-owners. In one sense, this is like placing a “Gun-free zone” sign in all the places that don’t show up in this database. All of the people who have benefited from the deterrent effect of neighbors who have armed themselves under the law will now likely lose that free ride. Trying to embarrass or pressure concealed-carry permit holders, and certainly opening them up to harassment on a political basis, what WRAL has succeeded in doing is to help criminals avoid armed citizens.

Guess what that means for everyone else?

While the absence of a concealed-carry permit-holder hardly guarantees the absence of guns in a given business or home, it could be an indicator, and for criminals, if the address they’re about to hit isn’t in the database, there is a higher likelihood of catching a business owner or resident unaware and unarmed. Ladies, you will be the first targets of this, because violent sexual offenders can now look to see if their intended targets are apt to be packing heat. We know victims of sexual assault frequently know their attackers, prior to the attack, and now such fiends will be able to verify whether their intended victim is a permit-holder. Consider that what WRAL has actually done is to point violent criminals in the direction of probable unarmed victims. Despite the political harassment North Carolinians with permits might now endure as a result, I would not fail to be join that list if I were a resident of that state. I would want every thug in the state who is aware of WRAL’s database to know that I am armed to the teeth and will defend myself vigorously. It won’t take long for the word of the existence of the database to spread to and among the criminal element.

This shows the foolishness of the left. In attempting to target gun-owners and concealed-carry permit-holders politically, what they may ultimately succeed in doing is to cause criminals to target everyone else. When that happens, more and more law-abiding citizens will go get a concealed-carry permit, or at least arm themselves in their homes, and that will be a good thing for the free people of North Carolina. This is typical of the manner in which leftists function: Their immediate concern was how to score political points against a class of citizens in North Carolina who they hold in contempt, and upon whom they had hoped to heap derision and scorn. Instead, they may well damn every other citizen of the state by helping criminals to filter out the concealed-gun carriers.

In fact, every resident of North Carolina should be outraged, because what WRAL has just done is to aid and abet the criminals. On the other hand, the one thing law-abiding citizens of that state should do in response is to get their concealed-carry permits. As is the norm, there will be unintended consequences of this action by WRAL, and one may be to impel more residents to procure their concealed-carry permits. As bad as this is, for those who like to look for “silver linings,” this story may actually offer one over the long run.

I have heard and read a good deal about a UN Convention on Small Arms Trade, a Treaty that some allege could ultimately result in the banning of firearms held by private citizens in the United States. While I’m not certain that such a treaty could affect domestic gun rights, the idea is that such a treaty, ratified by the Senate, effectively becomes Constitutional law. This argument is based on the notion that when the US enters into a treaty, it’s binding upon the government just like a constitutional amendment, although there are existing precedents in opposition to that view, including Reid v. Covert. Imagining that such a treaty would disparage our 2nd Amendment rights, were such a thing to eventuate, who doubts but that some leftist in charge would enforce it as such, or that a Supreme Court led by the likes of John Roberts would uphold it as superseding our 2nd Amendment? Who doubts that a Congress led by such cowards as now occupy those positions would subserviently enact all the funding mechanisms to support enforcement? Rep. Benjamin Quayle(R-AZ,) and co-sponsor Todd Akin(R-MO) have introduced the Second Amendment Sovereignty Act of 2012, (H.R. 5846,) in response to this threat. It’s going nowhere.

The Treaty in question is being written as we speak, and while we don’t know its content, anything that would impinge upon our domestic rights would be a real attack on the Second Amendment the likes of which would be unprecedented in American history. Then again, Obama-care was an attack on individual liberties unprecedented in history. Clearly, that there exists no precedent does not preclude a thing from being done, does it? All my life, I have heard a fair number of oaths including the phrase “my cold, dead hands,” that being the condition in which the persons professing said sentiment would enter before their guns would be taken from them. I’m not a betting man, but I personally believe most would turn in their guns without much more than a whimper. I think a diabolical leader of ill intent would know that too, and I believe he’d be willing to test the thesis. My question for you is simply: “Would Americans actually fight?”

This has always been my question, in fact, because I’ve been around long enough to know that many will say things that sound awfully tough, in terribly solemn tones in the first instance, but that most won’t live up to the billing in the second. Most mature people are relatively risk-averse, and when they consider handing over their guns to maintain a nervous peace versus the idea of actually beginning a second war for Independence against an[other] aggressive government, I think most so-called “fearless Patriots” might just chicken out. After all, by a slow process of incrementalism, the American people have let many of their liberties go without much more than a protest march or two, and not much more than a temporary backlash at the polls. I believe a rabid Marxist holding the reins of power would realize this too, as would his committed communist pals, and I think such a leader would be more than willing to go all the way and call some bluffs. In fact, I think such a villain would see it as a win-win: If he calls the bluffs of the American people on this and they should happen to fold, he would have rid the country of guns, and made the American people defenseless in their own homes. If he calls the bluffs, but they turn out not to be a bluff, he would have a good excuse to declare martial law, perhaps cancel elections, and wipe out a few hard-core conservatives along the way, if there is anything less than a perfectly united stance by American conservatives.

You might wonder why I am raising this issue now, and it surely arises in part from the recent talk over the treaty in question, but I am also asking the question because I’ve seen signs that we have no small number of surrender monkeys who call themselves “conservative.” If the day should ever arrive when gun confiscations actually begin, and there is a resistance, it will fail if conservatives don’t act – not talk – in lockstep. That would be a big play by by such a tyrant, for all the marbles, but it would also be a big play by Americans. It would be truly a matter of pledging their “lives and their sacred honor,” because any such battle would commence a counter-counter-revolution. What you learn from a lifetime of observation is that he who is more consistently committed wins every battle, every war, and every fight of any sort. This is why I have cause to worry: I think many people make many professions by which may not abide when push comes to shove.

After all, if such a resistance were to break out, you would scarcely receive news of it. Such a leader would use that new Internet shut-down switch to cut off that means of news dissemination. He would order the FCC to shut down all cell phones, and shortly, all wired calls, broadcast, cable and satellite, along with radio, and the only thing you might be able to dial would be 9-1-1, or if you had a shortwave radio, begin to exchange information before the jamming commenced in earnest . It’s what emergency exercises are intended to test. Remember? Neither would be trusted all law enforcement, nor all military. Too many are Oath-Keepers(though not nearly enough for my comfort.) What would result after a day or two is that the brain-addled multitudes would demand the restoration of their cable, their Internet, their phones, and their blessed text messages, so they would join the chorus from the left to put down any rebellion. Think about it. Fools all, yes, but fools who would provide a runaway government with every excuse it might ever need.

Every person must establish his or her own bright line across which government must not tread, or admit from the outset that he or she is a willing slave, but in the main, they do not admit it, and they make their lines dimly, and cover them over in hasty retreat when pressed. The singularly most pressing reason to raise this at this time is that I believe too few have actually considered all those oaths about “cold dead hands,” and what they would actually demand. After all, what that phrase implies is a willingness to literally enter a state of war against a runaway government that would claim legitimacy by virtue of some black-robed moron’s judgment, or some heat-of-the-moment command from a would-be tyrant. Any who take such things too lightly wouldn’t be the sort to be counted on in any case, because anybody who conceives of such things without deep prior contemplation of consequences isn’t very serious about it. Australia was a nifty experiment for the global gun-grabbers, and they saw how the cold-dead-handers reacted there. In a virtual flash, Australia was disarmed. Has Australia undergone a violent revolution? Have they repealed such measures? If so, I’ve not read about it.

If you wonder what the radical communist left would count on, considering the hundreds of millions of guns and the eighty-million or more firearm owners as an obstacle to their plotting, you might wish to give a thought or two to this. While alleged patriots who may or may not adhere to all of those oaths continue to make them, the radical left is surely plotting for the day in which they will make this a reality. Larry Grathwohl’s story of three decades ago hasn’t changed, and some of the very people about whom he had been concerned are now members of government. The question is whether they’ve thought this through, and I believe you can assume they have, and that’s something upon which I’m willing to bet. Our founders must have been much more extraordinarily brave than we credit them with having been. Now go consider all those oaths anew. Did you really mean them? Time may tell. Something to ponder.

Leave it to Breitbart.com to dig up this clip from 1995 of Eric Holder explaining how he would like to use the media, and the public relations outfits in Washington DC to push a new theme on the evils of guns in such a way as to mimic what’s been done with cigarettes. His point was that it would be best if young people, particularly young men, never had the desire to have or carry(keep and bear) guns. It’s typical of the left to believe that a PR campaign can fix anything, and of course, to some degree, it probably works on the sort of mind-numbed robots who tend to vote for leftists, but I don’t think Holder made much progress on this. On the other hand, for all his talk about the evils of guns, he sure didn’t seem to mind putting guns into the hands of narco-terrorists in Mexico through the Justice Department’s Fast and Furious and Operation Gun-Walker.

This is typical of the left. “Brainwash!” This man actually wanted to “brainwash” Americans almost two decades ago, and he wonders why his testimony before Congress comes under scrutiny? Who else is he trying to “brainwash,” and with what? Leftists are dangerous precisely because their ideas represent a threat to American liberty. We need more than the sort of bland change represented by Mitt Romney. We need a reversal.

If you missed Newt Gingrich when he addressed the National Rifle Association in mid-February, you missed a great speech. He referenced history extensively, and explained the real meaning of the Second Amendment and its critical importance as a political right. Gingrich did not mince words about the reason for the right to keep and bear arms, its origin, and its continuing relevance and application in our modern world. It was encouraging to hear a politician say that he understands the new direction of the attacks on the Second Amendment being levied by the Obama administration and the institutional right.

This speech is a classic:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbGbKbGZsGY]

The idea that the Second Amendment is about hunting and target practice ignores the fact that the first purpose of the right to keep and bear arms is a political right, meant to keep government in check. Yes, that’s right. The idea of the founders is that by the guarantee of the Second Amendment, the American people ultimately retain the right to throw off a tyrant. This is why every socialist on the planet, or in the history of the planet, eventually gets around to banning firearms: It’s easy to rule over disarmed peasants. I am gratified to see that Gingrich has a thorough understanding of this aspect of our constitutional system of government. His knowledge of history helps explain why this context is not lost on Gingrich, and it’s one of the many particulars of his candidacy that exhibits his qualifications for the job he’s seeking.

There is a provision of the Omnibus spending bill passed by Congress before the Christmas recess that prohibits the expenditure of funds for use in the advocacy or promotion of gun control. In his signing statement, President Obama effectively said “to heck with that,” and said he would do whatever he deems “necessary and expedient.” This is the behavior of a President who when campaigning for that office said that signing statements of this sort are unconstitutional, and that as per the constitution, the law signed is the law enacted irrespective of a contradictory signing statement. I suppose we can file that one alongside his promise to be “the most transparent administration in history.” This provision was to apply to the National Institutes for Health, the Centers for Disease Control, and other health-related federal agencies.

Obama simply doesn’t care what the law says. Once again, we find the President implementing by executive fiat that which contradicts the law. Below, you can watch video of a discussion with John Frazer, NRA-ILA Director of Research and Information(H/T BreitbartTV:)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEVnQwYEXfY#!]

This is simply another instance of President Obama’s willingness to ignore the law, even laws he signs, and it’s a disturbing trend we mustn’t ignore as we stand now just more than ten months from a Presidential election. This continual imposition of his will in opposition to the law is becoming an epidemic. He’s taken similar steps with other provisions of law via executive orders and regulations, and as you will remember, the entire Fast and Furious debacle was undertaken to give him statistical justification for those regulations. If he’s re-elected, this will only grow worse, and we will be under his regulatory boot through January, 2017. It’s time to make this President a one-termer, and send him home.